pkg

One package command on every distro.

Synopsis

pkg install|remove|search|info NAME ... [-- tool options]
pkg owner PATH ...
pkg files NAME
pkg upgrade [--all] [-- tool options]

Description

Every Linux family has its own package manager with its own words. Debian and Ubuntu use apt, Fedora and RHEL use dnf, Arch uses pacman, openSUSE uses zypper and Alpine uses apk. The same job has five spellings. Searching is apt search, dnf search, pacman -Ss, zypper search and apk search. The list of files in a package is dpkg -L, rpm -ql, pacman -Qlq and apk info -L.

pkg gives you one set of words and runs the real command for the machine it is on. It does not install anything by itself and it has no package list of its own. The distro's package manager does all the work, prints its own output and asks its own questions. pkg adds three things on top.

1. It finds the package manager by looking for the commands themselves, in the order apt-get, dnf, yum, pacman, zypper and apk. The first one found wins. That makes Linux Mint and Pop!_OS count as apt, Rocky and Alma as dnf, and Manjaro and EndeavourOS as pacman, with no list of distros to keep up to date.
2. It puts sudo in front of the commands that change the system, unless you are root. search, info, owner and files only read, so they never use sudo.
3. After an install or a remove it prints one line you can trust, such as pkg: installed ripgrep 14.1.1-1+b4, with the version read back from the package database. The package manager's own output can run to a hundred lines, and that line is the one that matters.

pkg owner answers "which package put this file here?". It takes a path or a bare command name. For a bare name it looks the command up on your PATH first, so pkg owner ss means pkg owner /usr/bin/ss. It also handles merged /usr, where /bin is a link to /usr/bin. The database may know the file as /bin/ss or as /usr/bin/ss, so pkg asks about both, then about the real file behind a symlink. A file no package owns shows as no package, installed by hand. That is how you spot a binary someone copied into /usr/local/bin.

pkg upgrade refreshes the package lists and updates everything the package manager installed. With --all it also updates flatpak apps, snaps and device firmware through fwupd, each one skipped when it is not installed. When the update brought a newer kernel than the one running, the last line says so, because the new kernel only takes effect after a reboot.

Options

Options can go anywhere before --. pkg install htop -y and pkg -y install htop are the same.

Actions

The commands it runs

This is the whole translation table. -n prints the same commands for your machine.

With -y, apt and dnf get -y, pacman gets --noconfirm and zypper gets --non-interactive before the subcommand, which is where zypper wants it. apk never asks, so it gets nothing.

pacman -Rs removes the package and the dependencies nothing else needs, which is what most people expect from "remove". apt remove keeps the config files in /etc. Pass -- --purge to drop them too.

Per-distro notes

Debian and Ubuntu

pkg uses apt when it is there and apt-get and apt-cache when it is not, as on minimal images. When the output of search or info goes to a pipe or a file, pkg runs apt-cache even where apt exists. Piped apt adds a warning about its CLI and "Sorting..." lines, and apt-cache prints the same packages without them.

Fedora, RHEL, Rocky and Alma

pkg uses dnf, or yum on old releases without it. dnf upgrade refreshes the metadata on its own, so there is no separate update step.

Arch, Manjaro and EndeavourOS

pkg upgrade runs pacman -Syu, the only supported way to update Arch. pkg install runs pacman -S without -y, so it never does a partial upgrade. AUR packages are out of scope. Use your AUR helper for those.

openSUSE

Tumbleweed is updated with zypper dup, not zypper update. pkg upgrade runs zypper update, which is right for Leap. On Tumbleweed run sudo zypper dup yourself instead of pkg upgrade.

Alpine

apk never asks questions, so -y changes nothing. pkg files needs the package installed.

Safety

• pkg never runs a package manager command you did not ask for. -n shows the exact commands first.
• search, info, owner and files never use sudo and never change anything.
• The package manager asks its usual "Do you want to continue?" question. pkg does not answer it for you unless you pass -y.
• When the package manager fails, pkg stops and exits 1 with its exit code, and does not run the next step. A failed apt update means no apt upgrade.

Pass-through

Options after -- go to the package manager, in the right place for install, remove, search, info and upgrade. owner and files take none.

$ pkg -n install nginx -- --no-install-recommends
sudo apt install --no-install-recommends nginx

On Fedora the same idea is pkg install nginx -- --setopt=install_weak_deps=False.

Needs

One of apt, dnf, yum, pacman, zypper or apk, which every distro has. sudo for install, remove and upgrade when you are not root, from the sudo package. flatpak, snapd and fwupd are optional, for upgrade --all.

Examples

Install a package

$ pkg install ripgrep
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  ripgrep
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Setting up ripgrep (14.1.1-1+b4) ...
pkg: installed ripgrep 14.1.1-1+b4

The lines above the last are apt's own. The last line is read back from the package database, so it only says installed when the package really is.

See the commands first

$ pkg -n install ripgrep
sudo apt install ripgrep
$ pkg -n upgrade --all
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
fwupdmgr refresh
fwupdmgr update

The same line on Fedora prints sudo dnf install ripgrep, and on Arch sudo pacman -S ripgrep.

Which package owns a file

$ pkg owner /usr/bin/curl ls
/usr/bin/curl  curl 8.14.1-2+deb13u4
/usr/bin/ls    coreutils 9.7-3

ls is a bare name, so pkg found it on the PATH first. On Debian the database lists ls as /bin/ls and pkg still finds it.

A binary nobody installed

$ pkg owner /usr/local/bin/k9s /usr/bin/curl
/usr/local/bin/k9s  no package, installed by hand
/usr/bin/curl       curl 8.14.1-2+deb13u4
$ echo $?
1

The exit code is 1 when any path has no package, so a script can check a machine for hand-copied binaries.

Update everything

$ pkg upgrade --all
Hit:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie InRelease
...
apt       updated
Looking for updates...
Nothing to do.
flatpak   updated
snap      not installed, skipped
No updatable devices
fwupd     updated
pkg: all updated in 48.2s.
     Reboot to use kernel 6.12.107+deb13-amd64.

fwupd exits with code 2 when no device has an update. pkg counts that as updated.

List a package's files

$ pkg files coreutils | head -5
/.
/usr
/usr/bin
/usr/bin/[
/usr/bin/arch

See what it found

$ pkg -v install htop
pkg: Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie), package manager apt
+ sudo apt install htop
...
pkg: installed htop 3.4.1-5

Troubleshooting

pkg: no known package manager found, looked for apt, dnf, yum, pacman, zypper and apk

The machine has none of them on the PATH, as in a distroless container or on NixOS. Use the image's own way to add software.

pkg: apt install stopped with exit 100, see its message above

apt printed why above this line. The usual causes are a typo in the name (E: Unable to locate package), stale package lists (run pkg upgrade or sudo apt update), or another apt holding the lock.

Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontend

Another apt is running, often the automatic updater after boot. Wait a minute and try again. Do not delete the lock file.

sudo: a terminal is required to read the password

pkg ran from a script with no terminal. Run it as root, or give the user a sudo rule for the package manager.

pkg: installed NAME with no version

The package has a different name in the database than the one you typed, such as a virtual package on apt or a group on dnf. The install still worked.

error: target not found on Arch

The package is in the AUR, not in the repos. pkg does not handle the AUR.

pkg owner says no such file or command

The path does not exist, or the bare name is not on your PATH. Give the full path.

Exit status

See also

cleanup, sysinfo, apt(8), dnf(8), pacman(8), zypper(8), apk(8)